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Fighting on All Fronts Leo Amery and the First World War

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Fighting on All Fronts Leo Amery and the First World War Fighting on All Fronts Leo Amery and the First World War Patricia A. Ferguson LEOPOLD S. Amery was a British Conservative statesman whose career in Parliament (1911-45) spanned the major events in the British Empire for a half century. He was a considerable scholar and was regarded as the chief imperial theorist of the time period, but he also loved the political fray. As the London Times' chief war correspondent he led the extra-Parliamentary fight for army reform following the Boer War. From 1916-1918 he served as under-secretary to Prime Minister Lloyd George's war cabinet, and helped draft the Balfour Declaration. As junior minister in the Admiralty he led the "revolt of the under­ secretaries" in the Conservative party which toppled the Lloyd George coalition government in 1922. In the 1920s he served as First Lord of the Admiralty and then as Colonial and Dominions Secretary, both considered "imperial" offices. Amery left the cabinet in 1929 and did not serve in any governments in the 1930s. During these years be was a vocal opponent of disarmament and became a leader of an anti-appeasement faction after 1938. In that capacity he led the attack on Neville Chamberlain that brought down his government in 1940. Finally, as Secretary of State for India in Winston Churchill's war cabinet (1940- 1945), be fought Cburchill 's obstructionism and charted the course for the transfer of power in 1947. All of Amery's attitudes and political actions sprang from a world viewwbicb be championed throughout his political life, although this often placed him at odds with his own party's leadership. While still at Oxford in the 1890s, Amery was attracted to the neo-imperialism espoused by Sir John Seeley and George Parkin. He became an enthusiastic disciple of imperial unity, believing that the empire should be transformed into a commonwealth of sister nations under allegiance to the British crown, with England as primus inter pares rather that the mother country for whose benefit the dominions and colonies existed. Although Amery refined and expanded his thinking over the rest of his life, the basic core of his belief never changed. Consequently, his patriotism was for the empire rather than just for England, and he viewed economic and military development as imperial issues rather than parochial ones. As the Unionists (from 1887 to 1924 the Conservative party was known as the Unionist party 69 because of their merger with the Liberal Unionists) struggled to locate itself in the new twentieth-century political landscape, debate focused on the nature of conservatism and the future of the empire. Eschewing the negative and sterile policy of anti-socialism by which the party was defining itself, Amery sought to invigorate conservatism with a set of positive policies of social imperialism. But to what extent was he successful? Amery entered the House of Commons in 1911 filled not with the awe becoming in a novice member but rather with an agenda. He aimed to discredit and eventually eliminate classic liberalism, which was embodied for him in Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith's government. Although Asquith and his ca bi net's liberal imperialism kept them from being direct heirs of Gladstone, the government's policy of free trade, their traditional views on the dangers of military preparedness and government by amateurs, and their tendency to "muddle through" in all areas seemed anachronistic and ill-suited to the quickened pace of the twentieth century. Amery wanted to replace liberalism with social imperialism, an all-encompassing and statist philosophy of government that would keep the imperial perspective at the forefront of all issues, and he would seek to solve Britain's and, indeed, the empire's social problems by intelligent and expert government intervention. Amery found, to his dismay, that nineteenth-century thinking permeated the Tory elements of his own Unionist party as well. Particularly during the Tariff Reform struggles of 1903-1910 the party was riven with schisms between the younger and progressive Liberal Unionists and the older and more traditional Tories. As a member oft be loose-knit efficiency group Amery struggled against the country-house and "mandarin" thinking of his own party even as be worked to divide and destroy the Liberal party. This became even more apparent with the advent of war. Throughout the first two years of the war Amery found himself not only at odds but actively opposed to the government's policies on recruitment, conscription, strategy, manpower utilization and tactics. After the Asquith government fell in December 1916, and Lloyd George became Prime Minister, Amery was called to London by Viscount Milner, bis mentor, and spent the rest of the war as a political secretary to the newly formed War Cabinet Secretariat and later to the Supreme War Council in Versailles. In this position he worked tirelessly to improve and consolidate imperial communication, and more often battled Tory dullness and obstructionism over the conduct of the war than lingering Asquithian individualism. Amery and bis friends mistakenly labeled the inefficient policies as liberalism, but in time Amery, at least, realized that the battle was not against liberalism, but an old world view versus a new one. 70 As a War Cabinet secretary Amery found himself at the center of power without official power himself, but near enough to comment on issues and influence others. Only in matters affecting the Empire was he acknowledged an expert. In some ways Amery's position in the First World War was a microcosm of his career: close to the center, without enough power to determine policy, he had to rely on influence to see his vision implemented, and his ability to influence fluctuated. THEWAR within Britain began just before 4 August 1914, and was fought as vehemently as the war in France and Belgium. Within Britain the war was fought between the forces of freedom and control, particularly between those in the government who thought the war should be conducted according to traditional British methods of economics, military conduct and tactics and those who, like Viscount Milner and Winston Churchill, believed that modern war would call for new and nation-wide strategies, efforts, and, above all, coordinated planning. Leo Amery was, naturally, all on the side of efficiency, control, and planning. Amery and several of his cohorts bedeviled Lord Milner and Austen Chamberlain to protest Richard Haldane's reinstatementthe War Office on 4August. As soon as they succeeded Amery began exhorting them to pressure the government to make General Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener the Secretary of State for War because he seemed so decisive and energetic. Although Chamberlain was annoyed at Amery's persistence, Unionist leaders did indicate their preference and did encourage Kitchener to take the appointment. Meanwhile Amery and his friend Simon Lovat created a recruitment scheme that would build on the existing Territorial Army organization. When Amery and Lovat called on the new Secretary of State on 7 August, Kitchener vetoed their scheme out of hand and "ordered" them to go to their respective constituencies and encourage recruiting there. Amery was so successful that the next week Kitchener appointed him Director of Civilian Recruiting for the Southern Command, with an office in Whitehall, under the Director of Recruiting, General Sir Henry Rawlinson. Fortbe next month Amery traveled around the southern and midlands cities, creating recruiting committees from existing political organizations and enlisting the local authorities to lead recruitment programs. He convinced several members of Parliament to help channel public opinion and energy towards recruitment by holding large recruiting meetings. Amery was increasingly aware that bis small team's energetic efforts were inadequate to keep abreast of the work. He saw men of all stations and diverse abilities offering their services to the nation and being ignored or turned away 71 by administrators of the hide-bound policies of the government and the War Office. Although Kitchener had enough insight to realize from the beginning that the war would last for years, he was one of the most obstreperous of the bureaucrats. Kitchener, who had spent almost all of his military career away from Britain, knew little about the British people or social and even military changes within the last thirty years. He distrusted any scheme which he had not created himself. When Amery saw that the swarms of recruits pouring in could neither be trained nor housed by existing methods he created a scheme that used the Territorial Army Associations already in place to take over part of the housing, clothing, and training of recruits. Since some of the most vital workers in Britain, miners and machinists, were the quickest to volunteer, the nation's capacity to arm and support itself was in danger, and the government was ignoring the problem. Amery suggested that recruited men should continue at their own jobs until actually called up (when the army was capable of using them),and untilthen would receive the normal reserve armypaymentof sixpence a day. Kitchener was convinced that the Territorial Army and the National Reserve were the modern equivalent of the traditional militia, and scorned using them for any military purpose. Nevertheless, Amery won his point and the scheme was put into effect. Contemporary observers relate that Kitchener listened to very few people, and usually responded to opinions or advice by shouting them down. But Amery was a person to whom Kitchener listened. In his memoirs Amery recounts on one occasion, when interrupting Kitchener, "[IJ cut his tirade short, and patiently explained the difference ... whereupon Kitchener at once gave way." 1 Hamar Greenwood, Amery's brother-in-law and fellow parliamentarian, wrote to Amery's wife about Amery's influence over the general: K(itchener] of K[hartoum] was reluctant to accept this, the only possible scheme, but Amery told him he must, and he has.
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